Page 35 of Interior Design for Demons
“Yes, he’s quite the catch,” Apollyon muses. His tail uncoils, rushing past me. “He’s composing a theme song for me. It will be epic and majestic beyond anything heard in this plane before.”
“Are you freaking kidding me? He’s writing you atheme song? Maybe you’re a pride demon after all.”
Laughter ripples through him, and as it does, his form quivers, the lines of it altering, shrinking. His scales evanesce, his tail narrows to nothing, his features shift and condense. And then he’s in human aspect again, lean and beautiful, clad only in his long red hair.
He stares at his hands. They’re actually shaking, and the vulnerability of that fact makes him seem suddenly, intimately human. “It worked,” he breathes. His eyes lift to mine, pools of shining gratitude and awe.
“What worked?”
“I have to go.” His gaze is still locked with mine, bright and brimming with emotion. “Thank you.”
“For what?” I say helplessly. “What did I do?”
But he has already vanished.
When Rath comes to get me in the morning, I’m bleary-eyed from the lack of sleep and ravenous from the lack of food. He apparently withheld my breakfast as well, because none showed up. He tosses me a packet of peanut butter crackers as we walk the halls of the Hell-building.
“I hate peanut butter,” I mumble.
Of course he knows that. He knows everything about me. And I’m beginning to hate him for real now, not just the token hatred I was supposed to feel because he kidnapped me.
He’s a demon. Why did I expect him to act like anything else? Why did I look to him for safety, comfort, encouragement, emotional support? Clearly I have major daddy issues, and they are manifesting in the worst way through my connection to Rath. Even now, I want his approval. I want him to fold me in his arms and promise I’ll be all right, that he’ll fend off the monsters and help me get through this. I want him to apologize, to reason away what he did last night, so I can sidle up to him and enjoy the sensation of his big warm body against mine, run my fingers through that golden hair. It’s a toxic impulse. I see it in myself, I know it, and I call it out. But that doesn’t mean I have the willpower to fight it. I have already broken the rules I set for myself. Being around a bunch of selfish, sadistic demons isn’t really helpful for personal growth. I’ll be lucky if I survive this competition with a shred of morality and sanity left.
Round 2 turns out to be bathrooms.
Yup. Bathrooms. In Hell.
There are multiple bathrooms on each level of this hellish skyscraper we’re in, for human captives and for the demons who like to stay in human aspect and enjoy food. The other contestants and I are each assigned a public bathroom on a different floor and told to design and decorate it in seventy-two hours. We have to pick out the sinks and toilets, the tile and the wall color, the stall partitions and the light fixtures. And each bathroom has to have a discernible theme.
My assigned bathroom has four toilet hook-ups and three sink hook-ups. There’s a small attached lounge area too, like an entry, through which the users will pass on their way to take care of business.
“None of the other contestants have a lounge to style as well,” Rusala says in an offended tone. “I asked around, and you’re the only one with extra work. Sorry, darling, it seems that someone has it in for you.”
“You’re the favorite,” adds Slate. “And that means you’re also the target. Tough luck, love.”
I sink crosslegged onto the bare concrete floor and stare around at the exposed pipe jutting from the walls, and the wires hanging from the ceiling. “Guys, I’m not sure I can do this.”
Slate’s tattooed face hardens. “None of that,” she snaps. “Ru and I have a lot riding on this too, you know. You’re not giving up, not if I have to stick pins under your fingernails to motivate you.”
“Ow! How would that motivate me?”
She explains, very slowly and precisely, as if I’m a big dumb baby she has to cajole. “The pins would cause pain, until you shape up—and then, once you get to work, I take them out, and there is less pain.” Her lips stretch in a smile. “See? Motivation.”
“Just go.” I stand up, shooing her and Rusala out the door. “You know my process. I need to brainstorm alone, with music. Out.”
Rusala rolls his eyes, but he already has one of the Hell-tablets ready, with Spotify queued up. Spotify in the Hell dimension. So strange. Once my demon helpers have stepped out, I browse a bit and find a playlist with lots of Tommee Profitt and Eurielle. Then I walk the perimeter of the room, stopping in various spots, thinking about the flow of traffic and how to carve up the space, and what my freaking theme should be.
This competition is all about the New Hell, with nods to the old Hell—and so far, the demons also seem to be very concerned with practicality and efficiency. They want beauty that works.
Beauty that works.
And suddenly I know exactly what my theme should be.
A few days after my design epiphany, I’m in the chair on the glossy stage again, with my back to the demon audience and my eyes glued to the immense screen where Episode 2 of our infernal reality TV show is playing. I’m jittery and trembly because although Rath didn’t deprive me of food again, I’ve been too busy to eat much, and I’ve basically been subsisting on copious amounts of coffee. Rusala fetches it for me from the Earthly plane, since the specialty coffees the demons drink have horrible things like sprinklings of bone dust instead of cinnamon, or froth whipped up from virgin’s blood rather than nice harmless whipped cream.
The episode cuts to a shot of me, with my golden-brown hair in a stringy tangled knot, paint smears on my nose and cheeks, circles under my eyes—but despite it all I’m eager, vibrant, and so alive as I speak to the interviewing demon. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve noticed that demons like their spaces to be practical and efficient as well as attractive. They appreciate beauty that works. And what’s more exemplary of that blend of beauty and efficiency than nature itself? So my project is based on nature with a Hellish twist—specifically the beautiful and poisonous things in nature. I give you—the Poison Bathroom.”
The camera moves into the space I created. The walls of the lounge area are drenched in royal blue, textured with navy sponging for dimension. Against that backdrop I’ve placed a green handcrafted velvet sofa with an alder wood frame and vintage golden tacks. The thing weighed like 400 pounds and was a pain in the ass to move. Antique brass lamps shed a golden ambiance over the rich blue walls, and the sofa is decked out with pillows featuring lionfish and cobra prints. While the lounge is carpeted in plush green, the bathroom floor features glossy emerald tiles. I mirrored the floor tiles on one wall, and painted the other bathroom walls emerald green with thin stripes in paler green, like the impression of grass or bamboo stalks.
